


Memories (That Never Fade) of Before (the One That Got Away)

by EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne



Category: Sharp Zero (Webcomic)
Genre: But if I must live knowing I created this, I am., I don't want to live knowing I created this., Multi, So does everyone else, So., someone kill me for writing this., sorry.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:22:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne/pseuds/EtchCantrellorLightningHeterodyne
Summary: This is the 'holy shit that's demonic' fic. Writing this killed me.Alex gets put through hell. Angst without a happy ending. TW: rape, torture, suicide, self-harm. I am condoning none of those things, if you are in a situation in which you feel suicidal or like hurting yourself you should find someone to talk to.





	1. Maybe (Almost)

The second the question was asked by Ceaser, Alex was half-screaming the answer before Eli could smack a hand over his mouth to stop him.

“YES! I’LL TAKE HIS PLACE!”

If Ceaser could have smiled, he would have. The video chat went dark as the metal man hung up.

Danny would be fine, and Alex… would be alive by the end of this.

That had been the only part Ceaser had promised them on. Alex would be alive. The state he was in, physically or mentally, was up to whatever Ceaser threw at him, but it was ‘Alex is alive and potentially beyond any sort of salvaging’ or ‘Danny’s body turns up in a ditch because Alex didn’t say yes’.

_ I’ll be fine. _

_ I’ll be fine, eventually. _

Fighting his way out of the room had been hard. Samira had actually resorted to trying to freeze him in place, Natia kept trying to immobilize him or put him to sleep, Eli and Isaiah and Kim were grabbing whatever limb they could reach, Zipper was doing a fairly good job of blocking his exit with Tanis, and Madina was barricading the door.

In the end, he’d shifted. Natia hadn’t had time to stop him. 

~

An hour later, Danny woke up on the front steps of Mission Control, Tanis and Nadia already running out to meet him. Elliot pulled up, Madina and Kate with him.

“Wha- Nadia! What happened- how did I get out?”

It was then that he realized who was missing from the ring of worried people around him.

“Where’s Alex?”

~

Waking up in a dark room was not ideal. Waking up unable to move was less ideal. Waking up unable to move in a dark room, and hearing the shuffling of a pair of very large feet, that was the least ideal thing Alex could have pictured.

Seven days.

Seven days, which he’d survive.

_ Danny lives, _ he said to himself when he saw Steel Coyote’s sadistic leer come into focus.

_ Danny lives, _ he said to himself, when he was setting a broken arm and taking weight off of three broken ribs, wincing at the undoubtedly horrid bruises that now littered his torso and the countless small cuts.

The next day was worse, scalpels and blood and screams and laughter bouncing off the concrete walls. Alex never figured out exactly what Steel Coyote carved on his collarbone, because on the third day, the brute went back and cut it all out, and Alex lost count of how many times he’d passed out, how many bruises, how many cuts and gashes and how much blood he lost.

_ Danny lives. _

The fourth day was, again, worse, though at this point Alex wondered just how that was possible. Getting literally tossed across the room like a rag doll wasn’t fun. Bone after bone, break after break, bruises forming on top of bruises. Blood dripped freely from his nose, and breathing was hard.

Alex lost the ability to even count his injuries because the pain just started blending together.

_ Danny lives. Danny lives. Danny lives. _

Five was the worst day.

Alex was numb from the waist down, tears dripping onto the stone floor in groups large enough to form small rivers.

He closed his eyes, and tried not to want to figure out what Steel Coyote was doing behind him.

It was actually the sound that cued him in, the wet slap of skin on skin, the grunts and the growls and the hand-shaped bruises he could barely feel forming on his hips.

Alex choked out a half-sob, half-laugh, both void of anything but pain. Of course he’d gotten bored, of  _ course  _ he’d decided to have a different kind of fun because  _ of course he did _ ,  _ of course the word ‘alive’ didn’t mean ‘salvageable’, didn’t mean ‘intact’, didn’t mean anything other than a pulse. _

He’d never been more glad for overloaded nerves that just clocked out for the day, because  _ at least I can only feel it in the vaguest sense of being aware of which muscles are pulled which way. _

_ Danny lives Danny lives Danny lives Danny lives- _

The now-familiar sting of a retreating scalpel was felt on his inner forearm- left arm, focus,  _ focus on the pain and the pricking sense of a few drops of blood and whatever you do don’t think about whats happening black it out black it out scalpels, pain, blood, safe territory, stay there. _

If Alex’s nerves were concious enough he’d be able to tell what it was that Steel Coyote was carving into him, and the sadistic laugh was almost background noise as he tried to figure it out.

Alex never thought he’d be that grateful to pass out from blood loss. He’d tried shifting a couple times, or running until his captor got bored, and it just ended in more bruises and more blood loss.

The sixth day was the best day, mainly because Alex saw Steel Coyote walk into the room (and hadn’t that leer just taken on a whole new meaning  _ DON’T THINK ABOUT IT _ ) and then lost any view of him as green fire blew out the wall he’d been standing in front of. 

Crank stormed through the rubble, wrapping Alex in the softest blanket he’d ever touched (or maybe it only felt that way because of the last few days, and Alex was ever so grateful for the fact that it was there, since he never found out what happened to his clothes), and picking him up bridal style with an ease that reminded Alex of just how many twenty-four hours it had been since he’d eaten (six. Six twenty four hour chunks of time surviving on water and unconciousness).

“I’d have taken the time to kill Ceaser too, but I wasn’t sentencing you to another second in that room,” the pyrokinetic said, and Alex found himself staring at an expression he never thought he’d see on Crank’s face- the kind you got with someone who was pissed enough, that someone got hurt so badly, to burn the city down, but wouldn’t let it show, because they were currently carrying whoever got hurt and first priority was ‘are they okay’, and second was wreaking hell on whoever did this to them.

Alex found himself oddly touched. It was the same way he’d looked at Danny after… after the event that resulted in Danny quitting.

_ I understand why now. _

Alex fell back into oblivion.

~

When he woke up, it was to the beep of a heart monitor and the quiet sobs of Danny and Elliot.

“I could’ve stopped him,” Nadia said, in the hopeless tone of someone who knows that when Alex wakes up, it’ll be with the kind of glassy, broken look that wasn’t there before.

“We all could’ve,” Tanis whispered. “I should have known Ceaser wouldn’t be so kind.”

“He’s waking up!” Samira said.

Alex opened his eyes, to see the dismayed faces of everyone, even…

Crank and Dispatch.

Actually known as Ace and Kate, their masks set on one of the many unused tables in the room. 

“I- God, I should’ve figured it out sooner, I’m so sorry-”

Alex cut Ace off before it got any worse.

“It’s- It’s fine. I’ll be… fine.”

It sounded like a lie even to his ears. Eli and Isaiah stood on either side of Kim, Danny and Elliot sat in the two open chairs next to his bed, Samira, Madina, Zipper, Tanis and Nadia lined the wall, with Madina blocking the door. Ace and Kate stood in the corner opposite the group of five, and across from Danny and Elliot.

Everyone’s face were damp with tears, and Alex’s mind almost went back to scalpels and screaming before Danny hugged him, mindful of the… the everything, really. Only his face was relatively un-injured, discounting the massive bruise on his jaw.

“We’ll give you some time.”

Everyone but Danny and Ace left, Elliot pressing a kiss to Danny’s cheek and Kate giving Ace’s hand a squeeze.

“When I woke up back over there- It- Alex-”

Danny didn’t finish the sentence before he burst into tears.

_ They probably figured out what happened from the injury report. Because I have no doubt there were injuries from... from day five. _

If the pain was anything to go by, Alex was right.

Alex closed his eyes, exhaling.

Blood and tears, behind closed eyes. Blood and tears, before open ones.

_ The room is gone, the knives are gone,  _ he _ is gone, and every time I close my eyes its like I never left. _

_ Maybe I never did. _

Ace and Danny exchanged words. Elliot came in, leading Danny out to the procession in the hallway.

Ace came over, very gently lacing his fingers through Alex’s.

“I stayed there for two days. You somehow survived five. I’m proud of you.”

_ For saying yes to a question I never should have gotten sloppy enough to hear, and coming out of the aftermath with a pulse. _

_ Not much besides a pulse. _

~

A few weeks later, Alex moved in with Ace. His episodes hadn’t gotten better, and Ace was the only person who could actually deal with them, so Alex had moved in with Ace.

It was still like he’d never left that dammed room in the first place. Dozing off? Sleeping? Closing his eyes for more than a moment?

And Alex was right back at scalpels and blood and screams.

_ How am I supposed to live like this? Stuck in that concrete cell like I never left it at all. _

Another four am. Another nightmare. Another half-scream as he woke up in a cold sweat.

It was endless.

After two weeks, Alex downed two glasses of tequila. He slept dreamlessly.

The hangover was horrible.

Alex grinned like an idiot the whole time.

He’d felt worse.

~

Ace was worried. Becoming an alcoholic to cope with trauma wasn’t a good idea. It was fortunate that Alex was a happy drunk.

Danny was also worried. He’d barely heard from a sober Alex.

Eli was worried. Alex couldn’t come in to work, not because of the injuries, but because the only time since that almost-week he’d tried using his using his powers, it had ended in a panic attack and a flashback.

Samira was worried. Alex didn’t pick up anymore. He didn’t text back. The only person he really had any contact with was Ace, and even Danny only had the barest hint of a connection.

The other Vindicators were worried, and it was only growing as time passed, and Alex picked up and texted back less and less and less, and Ace stopped saying ‘yeah I’ll be there’ and had to start saying ‘I can’t, I’m sorry’.

Alex was getting worse. 

And then one day, Samira made a deal with him and Ace. Ace stopped smoking, Alex… pretty much stopped drinking (or at least, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be), and Samira worked up the courage to stop wearing the hijab.

And a few months later, it got better. Danny called Alex one night- the way he did every night- and Alex answered.

“Alex!”

“Yes, I am your brother.”

“Are you… okay?”

“Um… I’m actually doing better, all things considered. A lot better. I think- I think I will be.”

Danny was beaming.

“I am… I am so glad to hear that. Seriously, I… you have no idea how happy this makes me.”

“I can almost hear the smile.”

~

Samira and Alex went out for Starducks the next day, chatting about fandoms over coffee and pastries. They walked a ways with Jet, and that night Alex dragged Samira to Ace’s concert.

Over the next two weeks, Alex got out more. Ace stopped finding empty bottles under the sink. He showed up to their concerts, and Alex had tentatively begun using his powers. Just a bit- grabbing the last cup of coffee from the break room, so on. Against all odds, he’d gotten better.

Alex was walking back from one of their concerts, having opted out of the afterparty. Ace wouldn’t be far behind, having gone to see Rodney off for college (again).

The streets were well lit. The alleys connecting to them were not, and so when a massive hand snaked out (covered in burn scars and half-unusable from where it was crushed) to grab Alex, he didn’t notice until he turned, and caught a flicker of movement, and saw what was making it, and froze.

He couldn’t shift, or run, or- or anything.

_ I can’t move- I can’t move I can’t move I can’t move- _

Steel Coyote, mangled but healed stood, staring down at Alex with the all-too-familiar grin and the posture of someone about to get exactly what they want.

“You still owe me two days,” he rumbled, and there was something like happiness in his voice that made Alex’s stomach churn.

_ I never really left, though. I kept drinking before bed, I just tossed the bottles. And the dreams never really stopped, I just stopped remembering them. _

_ Because I still woke up screaming, I still woke up in cold sweats with those scars  _ throbbing _ just like they always do- _

It had taken one glance from Eli at the medical report for him to say “I’m paying for scar removal.”

Nobody had argued, and so it hadn’t been till a month later, when Danny told him what had been carved there.

No, the scars weren’t visible, but if Alex pressed, he could feel the outlines of where they were.

And now, now they hurt like anything, the memory of when and why he got them all too fresh, wondering if this time Ace would save him?

_ Or maybe I’ll wind up with ‘WHORE’ carved into my other arm.  _

_ I don’t care as long as that’s the farthest he goes- _

Steel Coyote began to lumber towards him, and Alex stood, trapped like a deer in the headlights who knew they were about to die.

_ I have to run I have to move I have to GET OUT OF HERE so it doesn’t happen- not again, not again, not again, please not again, anything, anything but that- _

One huge, meaty paw clamped down on his arm, and before Alex knew it he’d been lifted into the air like he was weightless.

Green fire- fire he’d only been this glad to see once before- flared up to his right. Ace stood, all the fury of hell etched on his face.

“Over. My. Dead. Body,” the singer growled.

Steel Coyote had dropped Alex and ran by the time Ace took a step forward. Alex pushed himself up onto hands and knees-  _ fingerprint bruises on his hips that took a week to fade _ \- and Ace helped him up, rubbing circles into his back and whispering comforts.

Alex didn’t remember the walk home. He didn’t remember Ace getting him into their bed, or the singer laying down next to him.

All he saw were concrete walls, and a bloody floor, and the glitter of scalpels and tears.

The former places of the finger-shaped bruises throbbed all the while, almost like they were being made all over again.

_ Day five, day five, day five, all I can see is day five, blood- _

_ Blood. _

Ace was asleep when Alex stumbled into their bathroom, going through the carefully stocked first aid bin they kept until he found something long and sharp enough.

Alex had run it across his wrist before he thought twice. 

Little teardrop rubies were running in rivulets by the time he had enough cuts to be a distraction. 

_ Dull razors, empty bottles. Is there a difference anymore? _

Everything did kind of blend together when it all became another teardrop illusion on a concrete floor.

_ I never left. _

_ I never left. _

_ I never left. _

~

The cuts began making up more of his forearms than bare skin did. Alex wore long sleeves, even though it was April. 

Ace got worried again.

Danny and Samira stopped getting responses and started going to voicemail.

Eli stopped seeing Alex come in to handle paperwork, or just generally help around Mission Control.

The nearby bars began seeing him regularly again.

“He’s getting worse,” Ace had said to Danny over a phone call, three weeks after seeing Steel Coyote.

“Alex is drinking again,” Danny said to Samira when they met, four days after that, at the local cafe. Samira’s face dropped.

“I think he might have gone to cutting as well,” Samira said to Eli, white as a sheet, having heard Ace idly comment that the razors got duller faster than they used to, and putting that together with the fact that it was almost June and Alex still wore long sleeves.

Eli closed his eyes, bowing his head.

The light in Alex’s eyes had been glassy when he’d opened them in that hospital. For a while there, they’d all thought it would get brighter.

They were wrong. 

Even Alex, who wryly smiled at his reflection, any light long gone.

 


	2. Almost (Never)

Alex stumbled out of one of his now-regular haunts. He’d had too much to drink, again, but the apartment wasn’t that far away. 

Halfway home, a smooth voice came from the alleyway next to him.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing out here all alone? Looking for a little… fun?”

Alex started walking faster.

A different voice came.

“Aw, come on, don’t run away!”

Someone’s hand clamped down on his wrist, and someone else shoved him into the alleyway.

_ Nonononononononono- _

Four people, all of them a lot stronger than Alex was now. Before, he might have been able to take them, but now?

The odds were laughable.

_ Oh god. Oh god, no, no, PLEASE- _

“What, princess?”

It registered, through the terrified haze, that Alex had said that out loud.

He was shoved against the alley wall, and Steel Coyote had been bad but this time it was so much worse, because there was no numbness, no scalpel-cut distraction, it was just  _ pain _ . And he could feel it, could feel the tissues tearing because they didn’t bother with lube, the blood dripping down his thighs, and he was sobbing into the brick and mortar and  _ nobody can hear me, nobody cares _ , Ace isn’t here to save you this time.

“Stop- stop, please, please stop-” Alex sobbed into the wall in front of him.

“Not a chance, princess,” and he could  _ hear _ the leer they wore.

Then all four of them were gone, condoms tossed into some dim corner of the alleyway, Alex left curled up and sobbing, because who wanted anything once it was used?

 

~

 

That night, Alex slipped into the apartment, ever thankful that Ace was on patrol.

It was better that he find the aftermath than be here when it happened.

Alex closed the bathroom door behind him, tears still streaming down his face.

Living inside concrete walls had been hell. Being tossed against brick ones had been hell, being stuck in the blood and the pain and the torture that he  _ knew _ he would never get away from, it was hell.

_ I never left, and I never will. And it’s never going to go away, it’s never going to get better, it’s going to be one more empty bottle and one more shallow cut until I’m dead. _

The former Redshift sat, curled in on himself, back against the wall, a razor blade pressed as far into his wrist as he could make it go.

_ I’d rather be dead than stuck in that place any longer. _

Three slits ran up each arm, as deep as Alex could make them.

Now he was laying down, too much blood lost for Alex to support his own weight, watching the rubies run down his arms.

_ They’re kind of pretty, when you know they’re all that can save you from your own mind. _

Alex felt the black spots on his vision start tugging at his consciousness, clouding ever further across his vision.

He smiled, and closed his eyes.

Alexander Becket fell into a dreamless sleep, and he never woke up.

 

~

 

Ace opened the door, changing into nightclothes and heading over to the bed he shared with Alex.

It was empty, and the sheets were cold. Ace dialed Alex’s number without thinking- Alex never answered anymore, but it was the first thing he came up with.

Ringing came from the bathroom.

_ What? _

The singer walked down the hallway, up until he saw the little hint of red that pooled from under the door.

His eyes widened, and Ace broke the lock, heedless of the money it would take to replace it.

There he stood, frozen, eyes locked on the peaceful smile that would never fade, the closed eyes that would never open, the six cuts that would never heal.

Ace’s knees hit the floor in front of Alex’s body, blood soaking his jeans and he pressed a hand to the former Vindicator’s chest and was met with no warmth and no heartbeat.

“No…” he whispered.

Ace closed his eyes, hunching in on himself, as the tears started falling, sobs ringing through the place they used to share, echoing through the memories left trailing in Alex’s wake, so much more painful now.

The singer sat there for more time than he could tell, tears streaming down his face, inches away from Alex’s own, one hand over his mouth to muffle the sobs, and the other still pressed to Alex’s chest, right over his dead heart, almost as though he still believed it would start beating again.

~

 

The next morning, everyone filed into the conference room, exchanging confused glaces and whispered questions. Only so many chairs lined the table, and so Eli stood at one end, the other left empty.

Ace had only called Danny, and neither of them wanted to say it twice.

Samira was the only one of them to figure it out, knowing the moment Ace and Danny walked through the door.

“No…” she whispered.

Ace put a hand on Danny’s shoulder, gently shoving him over to Elliot. The redhead turned to face him, ‘are you sure’ written all over his face, and Ace blinked back tears and nodded.

The singer took a breath, slowly walking to the empty end of the table, head down to avoid having to see anyone’s faces (because his own grief was bad enough, hearing Danny’s choked “What?” at five that morning was bad enough, knowing that if he hadn’t volunteered that night Alex would still be alive was bad enough).

“Alex slit his wrists last night. When- When I got home, he- he was already-”

Eli’s mug shattered against the tile floor, Kate already pulling Ace into a hug while they cried their eyes out against each other’s shoulders. Kim and Isaiah got up, pulling Eli into a hug. Samira and Madina leaned against each other, while Elliot pressed his face into Danny’s chest to hide the fact that he was crying just as hard (because Alex may have been Elliot’s friend but he’d been Danny’s brother and he had it so much worse).

Natia was perhaps the one who cried the hardest, and Ace couldn’t help but he understood, because she didn’t get the option of pressing her face into Tanis’ shoulder and escaping everyone else’s pain. Tanis wrapped her arms around Nadia, whispering in her ear while she tried (failed) not to cry. Zipper got up slowly- probably the most put together of all of them, and he walked around the room, hugging every cluster of people.

Ace asked him why, and Zipper’s reply was four words long.

“It helps me too.”

Nobody spoke after that.

 

~

 

Alex’s funeral was a week later. Ace stayed long after everyone else did, Elliot having gently pulled Danny away (because if there was something he was good at it was realizing when things stopped helping and started hurting), Kate having told Ace she’d wait for him at the house.

The singer stood in front of Alex’s grave, and he pulled out the small dish he’d planned on giving Alex for his birthday, made of the glass and metal of both of their old masks (they hadn’t been distingushable from the new ones, but it was the memory that counted).

_ Alex’s newest mask- the one he’d left at Mission Control the day he said yes, it’s in a glass case in Eli’s office. _

_ Danny got the jacket Alex used to wear as Redshift, and it’s in a chest underneath his bed. Samira took Jet, and I got the apartment. _

Ace set the small bowl in front of Alex’s headstone, placing a stemless red rose inside it.

He turned, and walked away, as the rose was covered in green fire that didn’t quite burn.

The flame stayed there, even after the rose was gone (the memories stayed there, even after Alex left).


End file.
